What can be said about the latest attempt to ahem resurrect zombie flicks? It’s satisfyingly scary, that’s right a zombie movie that’s scary break out the champagne! Also it’s not a sequel to ’’28 Days’’
SYNOPSIS
A powerful virus is ironically released by a band of militant animal rights activists. The virus is concentrated rage that is transmitted by blood or bite and within seconds will turn a victim into a single minded animal who lives only for satisfying it’s insatiable rage (which takes a lot of doing). In only 28 days Britain is seemingly depopulated leaving only the Infected, however there is Jim (Cillian Murphy), a survivor who’s awoken from his coma and doesn’t know what’s happened, yet…
PLOT
“Day of the Triffids” meets “Biohazard” (see the bottom and I’ll explain) is probably the best way to describe the plot. Similar to most zombie movies like dull fest “Resident Evil” or only slightly better “Ghosts of Mars” the plot isn’t too deep, it’s a story of survival and the interaction between the other would be survivors. However unlike most zombie movies there this movie never rests on it’s runners or, more importantly, gets weighed down by exposition. Characters don’t feel the need to explain their whole background, especially when it serves no purpose to the movie. The plot follows Jim around an eerily vacant London, and takes its time never confusing suspense with boredom, eventually there are a few survivors to tag along and the movie is both scary yet fun, especially during the little things like changing a tyre. Then in the last act we meet the soldiers… It’s a huge jump from the simple, yet believable civilians to clichéd and utterly artificial soldiers. For example there’s the wild soldier who is chafing at command, the sergeant who philosophizes about existence (See Now, Apocalypse) and the ruthless OIC, tasteless rape jokes and Boyle’s token mental breakdown comes and the effect that the thrilling first half set up is tainted. The end does however propose the interesting, yet mishandled, idea that: What causes the apocalypse isn’t the long term threat it’s who runs the next society. Overall good.
CAST
The cast is strictly no frills, and in this sort of movie that works, Jim is a likeable everyman who is confused, terrified and struggling to come to terms with what’s happening to his homeland. Selena (Naomie Harris) is the tough, can do woman who’s the true survivor and willing to sacrifice anything, or anyone, to ensure hers. Frank (Brendan Gleeson) is the roguish father of Hannah (Megan Burns) who band together to cope with the “end”. The soldiers are horribly mishandled, this is mainly a story problem and not a performance problem. Most importantly we come to the zombies or “Infected” as they are called. Being a fan of the genre I’ve noticed that they haven’t progressed at all since “Night of the Living Dead”, they’ve always been B grade looking, slow plodding and dull monsters that make up for in resilience and numbers what they lack in scare value (unlike the Alien for example which looks scary, and scuttles at quite a rate and still scares the crap out of me). However those days are gone, as “28 Days Later” takes a different approach. The “Infected” have faces twisted with rage, sprint single-mindedly with limbs flailing at awkward angles and make odd screechy noises, and also they have blood oozing from orifices and other gory details. They are bloody scary and thankfully are seen only sparingly so they don’t lose scare value, they are so bloody scary that it’s odd that Boyle felt we needed a human adversary at all.
STYLE
Grainy footage, shaky cameras, no nonsense. It’s indie to the core which is just as well because it forgoes such big budget scapegoats like big effects and instead keeps the action in your face and hectic. Boyle does solid work here and never mistakes tension for dullness but like The Beach once there’s a mental breakdown (note to Boyle get a new calling card this one is stale) the movie drops a few steps.
GENERAL COMMENTS
I loved this film, and had a great nigh heart stopping time watching it. If you’re into horror movies, especially Zombie flicks, then check this out and see the genre given new… Life(?) It does suffer a little from being run on a tight budget, namely that London is remarkably tidy for a post apocalyptic city (no car wreckages, flaming buildings, decaying corpses but the opening still works despite this). Also there are supposedly a thousand or so “Infected” fleeing from the sizzling embers of Manchester, but we hardly see any… There are also problems with the plot like the “Infected” are enraged so why don’t they attack others? They feel only the need to harm not consume living flesh etc… Finally there’s the issue of some weird product placement, specifically in the shopping scene, I found it humorous and a good break in tension but I was bloody confused at the characters plugging products to no one. All in all this does for Zombie films what “Dog Soldiers” did for Werewolf movies. (As a challenge after seeing this walk down an empty street at night without being creeped out)
WATCH WITH
A weapon, or a lot of chubby people who are slower than you.
“Day of the Triffids” is a sci fi novel, and later cruddy film, in which a man who’s eyes have just recovered from an accident wakes up in hospital to the sound of nothing. No nurses, no patients, no doctors (sound familiar?). He discovers everyone is blind as a result of some spectacular light show some time ago. Now three legged plants called Triffids run the country and feed of humans, he and a collection of other seeing survivors battle for their existence.
“Biohazard” was a b grade but enjoyable zombie movie that “Resident Evil”, what’s a tactful way of saying plagiarises???, errmm derives from. Basically at a chemical weapons lab the entire staff are infected with a virus that almost kills them and turns them into single minded butchering machines. (Basically it fully releases their anger… Sound familiar?)
But despite some similarities “28 Days Later” is strikingly original in its own way